In an ad-hoc mobile communication system, a radio access point usually transmits and receives information to and from other radio access points within the same ad-hoc network, using channel resources such as time slots, frequency bandwidth, code sequence, or combinations thereof. These resources are generally shared among users of the communication system. In such an ad-hoc network, there may either be a dedicated master access point for managing the ad-hoc network, or alternatively one radio access point may adopt the master access point functionalities for management of the ad-hoc network.
It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that a cellular base station and an ad-hoc master access point share at least part of the responsibilities for managing the resources and users within their area of coverage. Similarly the role of a radio access point in an ad-hoc network has a lot in common to the role of a mobile device in a cellular wireless system. For matters of simplicity the following description shall be referring to a cellular wireless network. Changes required for application of the present invention to ad-hoc networks are easily derived for those skilled in the art from the description.
In the context of wireless communication, all operations involved in either transmitting or receiving data are referred to as processing data. In order to process data, the mobile device has to expend operating and processing power for its equipment. From an economical point of view, the most reasonable expenditure of this power is obtained if in return the mobile receiver processes a lot of data while the power is spent. On the other hand, such power is rather wasted if while expending the power no or little data is processed.
The allocation of data to a user via the channel resource is usually done by a scheduling algorithm. At least for downlink, i.e. for the transmission direction from base station to mobile terminal, such a scheduler is usually operating in the base station or other parts of the non-mobile entities within the communication system. Such a scheduler usually evaluates parameters such as service data rate, channel state, but does not take into account an economic factor as described above. Even for uplink, i.e. for the transmission direction from mobile terminal to base station, a scheduler may operate in a central node (e.g. base station in cellular systems, master station in an ad-hoc network) to allocate resources. The result of such central node scheduling may then be transmitted to the mobile entities.
In wireless communication systems employing Dynamic Channel Assignment (DCA) schemes air-interface resources are assigned dynamically to links between a base station (BS) and multiple mobile terminals (MT). A layout of a typical communication system is shown in FIG. 1, wherein a BS serves several MTs in a service area. The air-interface resources are usually defined by a logical channel, where a logical channel corresponds to e.g. one or multiple codes in a CDMA system, one or multiple subcarriers in an OFDM system, one or multiple timeslots in a TDMA system (e.g. GSM), or to combinations of those e.g. in an OCDMA or an MC-CDMA system. DCA can be applied to uplink and downlink.
Employing Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), the data-rate within a scheduling frame for a scheduled MT will be adapted to the instantaneous channel quality of the respective link by changing the modulation and coding scheme dynamically. AMC is typically applied jointly with DCA.
In a system making use of DCA and AMC a so-called scheduler decides which resources are assigned to which MT. A commonly used approach is to use centralized scheduling, where the scheduler is located in the BS and performs its decision based on the following side information, such as channel quality information of the links to the MTs or offered traffic for specific links e.g. amount of data available for transmission to a specific MT.
Common objectives of the scheduler are to achieve fairness between users, maximize system throughput and/or fulfill Quality of Service (QoS) requirements (e.g. delay, data-rate, loss rate, jitter) for the services run by the scheduled mobile terminals. In state-of-the-art wireless communication systems the scheduler works on a packet basis.
The following schedulers are well known examples in the area of wireless communications:
Round Robin (RR) Scheduler:                This scheduler allocates equal air-interface resources to all MS independent of the channel conditions thus achieving fair sharing of resources.        
Max-Rate (MR) or Max C/I (MC) Scheduler:                This scheduler chooses the user with the highest possible instantaneous data-rate (carrier-to-interference C/I ratio). It achieves the maximum system throughout but ignores the fairness between users.        
Proportional Fair (PF) Scheduler:                This scheduler maintains an average data-rate transmitted to each user within a defined time window and examines the ratio of the instantaneous to the average channel conditions (or ratio of the instantaneous possible data-rate to the average data-rate) experienced by different users and chooses the user with the maximum ratio. This scheduler increases the system throughput with respect to RR scheduling, while maintaining some degree of long-term fairness.        
More detailed information on the structure and function of a scheduler can be obtained for example from US 2003/0104817 which discloses a method for scheduling multiple users sharing a communication resource, particularly relating to high data rate wireless transmission putting emphasis on QoS considerations.
In current systems, a terminal may transmit signals to tell the scheduler what data rate is necessary to satisfy the user or service. Among other parameters, this may involve an average connection (or service) data rate and a maximum allowable delay. However, the scheduling at BS cannot know whether an MT is working efficiently in terms of power consumption for reception of data.